Carbon Budget Delivery Plan: High Court Ruling Debate
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Lord Howell of Guildford
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Carbon Budget Delivery Plan: High Court Ruling
Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Lord asks a very detailed question. The third carbon budget ended in 2022, so I do not think that issues such as Covid will have been particularly relevant to that. We exceeded that by 15%. The noble Lord outlined some of the most difficult areas that we have to tackle: transport, housing, and agriculture. Agriculture is currently responsible for about 12% to 15% of our emissions, and that will grow as a percentage of our emissions as other sectors decarbonise, which they can do more easily. It is incredibly difficult. Defra, working with the Climate Change Committee and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, is seeking ways in which we can absolutely make agriculture play its part in reducing our emissions.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, is there not something a bit strange about this whole debate? I am sure that the High Court ruling was made correctly on the basis of all the evidence before it, but achieving net zero on all electric delivery plans has, in fact, hardly started. About nine-tenths of our total energy use is yet to decarbonise. How can anyone possibly know at this stage whether these plans are sufficient? It cannot be done.
Lord Benyon (Con)
We have to work with the Climate Change Committee to show that they can be. Interestingly, the judge said in his judgment that the assessment involved
“an evaluative, predictive judgment as to what may transpire up to 14 years into the future, based on a range of complex social, economic, environmental and technological assessments, themselves involving judgments … operating in a polycentric context”.
I had to look that one up: it means “many centres” but I am not quite sure how it applies here.
My noble friend is absolutely right that we have go across a range of different sectors to deliver on our carbon reductions, so it makes good economic sense to do so, as well as complying with the law.